Madness Within
by MournfulSeverity
Summary: It's a monthly thing, the fear, the agony in his bones, and although the wolfsbane potion helps, Remus isn't sure how much longer he can do this.


**Disclaimer: Everything belongs to JK Rowling**

**This one shot was created for a Platform 9 3/4 contest with a max word count of 1200. **

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The goblet smokes, blue tendrils reaching from its metal sides, stretching up towards the expanse of the stone ceiling. The smoke has persisted for hours, no matter how much Remus has willed it to go away, for the potion to disappear completely. He has sat here, entranced by the vapor all the while, by its unwillingness to listen to reason, to let cold overtake it.

It has been this way since Snape brought it, since Snape placed it on the ostentatiously large, mahogany desk. An expression of painful distaste, of obligation, etched in his face. Remus just hasn't been able to find it within himself to take a drink.

He draws it closer. The sky is growing gray, the marbled colors of sunset dimming as the sun dips behind the hills. Time is running out.

The goblet is smooth beneath his fingers, chilled despite the warm liquid that bubbles inside. Remus' nose inches upwards, a wrinkle of disgust finding itself in his features before the potion has even touched his lips. He feels his throat begin to grow tight, preparing itself to fight against the remedy. The concoction that will keep him – all of them – safe.

He stares down at it, at the blue drink that swims with polluted brown. He knows it will taste just the same. A spring that had long ago been clean, pure, and now swims with trash that distorts its beauty. Remus tips it back, spilling it down his throat while touching as little to his tongue as possible. It tastes of liquid that has grown stagnant in the bottom of a bin. He gags, chasing it down with the open bottle of chocolate liqueur, saved for just this occasion.

The sweetness of it contrasts with the vileness of the potion and he finds a sliver of him hoping – yet again – that the chocolate will kill the beast inside him. He knows its pointless, that nothing will ever take the werewolf part of him away, but the hope of it keeps him going. It's the only way he knows how. The only way he has known for years.

Remus pushes himself from the stiff, wooden chair, his drink forgotten. There is only one thing in mind as he prepares himself, the camp bed in the corner, the pillows and blankets piled on top of it. He collapses into it, knowing they will shred beneath his claws in moments, that feathers will cling to his fur, will coat the floor around him.

The minutes pass slowly as he waits, memories of the charms he cast on this room playing on a loop. The room has been silenced, leaving any passersby impervious to the cries of pain that will tear themselves from him. The door has been locked, charmed to prevent anyone from entering. Charmed to prevent him from leaving. With a few waves of a wand, his office within the castle has become his prison. A way to prevent him from killing the students he should be caring for should the wolfsbane potion be ineffective.

The sky is dark now, the brilliant hues of before having been replaced by a velvet purple, only splattered with the speckles of stars. His eyes drift immediately towards the five that he has become dependent on. The constellation of Cassiopeia. Their vibrancy in the dark sky is stretched, distorted by the mottled glass of the window, but he knows its there.

It is a view Remus has become accustomed to. A view he has memorized. The points of Cassiopeia's crown ever present in the sky in front of him. The points that seem to carve into his heart and remind him why he's here. Why he's huddled in fear in the North tower of Hogwarts.

It isn't the dark he is afraid of, the sea of neverending black that hangs just beyond these stone walls. Many nights it isn't even the sky he is afraid of, the glittering of the stars, the map of constellations. And there are times, days or even weeks before his transformations that he isn't even scared of the moon. It is what the moon brings that terrifies him. It is what he becomes.

367\. That's how many times he has transformed, many of them in this castle. 367 times his skin has thinned, threating to split as the beast inside frees himself, that his bones have stretched in a body too small to contain it. 367 times that the pain has come, raw, unending, bursting forth from him as a force that couldn't be contained before settling once more in the crevices of his chest.

There have been self-inflicted scars numbering higher than that. Scars that heal just in time for the new ones to mar his flesh. Blood. There is always the lingering taste of blood when the transformation is over, metallic, bitter from experience as it coats his lips in crimson. And the bodies. There have been so many bodies.

He is grateful he is here, inside the stone walls of his office with his sanity. There will be no broken form of a sparrow unable to escape his grasp, no opalescent strands clutched in his bruised fingers tomorrow morning from a unicorn who came too close. Here, the harm inflicted will only be to himself.

The memories here will be easier to live with. The upturned furniture, the torn parchment, it means little when compared to the number of close calls he had as a child. Before he knew what to do, before he knew how to control himself. Before he knew better.

And now, tonight, will be the 368th time he'll experience it again.

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**A/N: Yes, I actually did the math. February, 1994 would have been Remus' 368th transformation.**


End file.
